JAKARTA The rise of Islamophobia in the West is making Indonesia's religious moderates and "comprehensive" approach to fighting extremism more relevant than ever.
In late November, two weeks after the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, Indonesia's largest Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama, launched a video campaign aimed at countering extremist ideology. International media hailed the video as a call for tolerance that could eventually help undermine the Islamic State, the militant group behind the attacks.
Indonesia is home to the world's largest Muslim population, and NU, with an estimated 40 million members, is the largest Muslim group in the world.
"Today a group of people think as though they were the most righteous. They claim to act on behalf of the religion and wreak havoc," said Muhammad Muslih, an executive of GP Ansor, the youth wing of NU, during the film's launch in Yogyakarta province.
The 90-minute film, titled "Rahmat Islam Nusantara" (The Divine Grace of East Indies Islam), urges Muslims not to take too rigid a view of Islamic scripture and to put more focus on the human side of Islam. The film encourages them to follow in the footsteps of the wali songo, the nine earliest propagators of Islam on the island of Java who are said to have spread the religion through peaceful means, allowing assimilation with the local culture.
Organizations like NU and Muhammadiyah -- Indonesia's second-largest Muslim group, with an estimated 20 million followers -- have been working together with the Indonesian government to promote tolerance and curb extremism among Indonesian Muslims, who represent 85% of the country's total population of 250 million.
The majority of Indonesian Muslims self-identify as moderates, practicing a local brand of Islam that is generally less restrictive and more inclusive than its Middle Eastern counterparts.
While several hard-line groups do exist in the country, most are nonviolent and they form only a tiny fraction of Indonesia's population.
Followers of IS are apparently even smaller in number. In November, Indonesian police said 384 Indonesian nationals are confirmed as having joined the extremist group in Syria, while 46 others have returned to the archipelago after visiting Syria and are now being closely monitored by security officers.
The actual numbers may be higher, but police say that so far they are not worried about the possibility of "IS graduates" launching attacks in the country, citing their "low capacity" to do so. Several Indonesians arrested by the local authorities upon coming back from Syria earlier in 2015 said they abandoned IS after it failed to pay them as much as promised.
Source asia.nikkei.com
